“Bright Green Island” is the official development strategy for the island of Bornholm in Denmark. One of the visionary pillars of Bornholm - green, sustainable, carbon-neutral island, based on renewable energy by 2025. Amongst others, it also aims to make Bornholm the national test-zone for smart, sustainable energy.

In 2018, the document “The Bright Green Island vision – The Bornholm goals towards 2035” was published, serving as an inspirational catalog and guideline for the future development of Bornholm. The vision of the document presents eight goals that citizens, businesses, local organizations, associations as well as politicians have been a part of developing. These goals will work as a guideline for creating a sustainable, climate-friendly society on the island of Bornholm.

In the same year, 2008, the energy strategy “The path to an even more sustainable Bornholm” has been made. It presents a way to reach the goal of carbon-neutrality and the out-phasing of fossil fuels by 2025. This strategy has been developed as a part of the EU-funded energy project “TransPlan” (Transparent Energy Planning and Implementation). It ran 2007-2010 and initiated the collaboration between seven islands in the Baltic Sea Area.

“Solar Smart System Bornholm”, started in October 2017 on Bornholm, aimed to promote the development of solar panels that produce electricity, heating and cooling especially for businesses and houses that are not connected to a district heating system to facilitate the out phasing of oil. Bornholm airport and a local household nearby participated in the pilot project to test the facility. The project was estimated to finish in May 2019. Partners, involved in the project, were “Racell”, BEOF (“Bornholms Energi & Forsyning”), DTU, “Danfoss” and COWI. Funding was provided by the Danish Energy Agency’s fund EUDP.

One more project on the island of Bornholm is called EcoGrid 2.0. It is a development and demonstration project that explores the possibility to create flexibility in electricity consumption by controlling the household’s consumption at certain times. The project is coordinated with Bornholm’s Energy strategy and aims to explore how to adjust the grid for the electricity system of the future with fluctuating energy sources. 1000 local inhabitants participate in the project. The project runs 2016-2019 and received 49 million DKK from the Danish Energy Agency’s EUDP.

Currently, 100% of the electricity and more than 80% of the heat supply on the island come from the sun, wind, and biomass.

Keywords: renewable energy, strategy, EU, solar energy, heating, cooling, electricity, energy efficiency, Bornholm, Denmark